


Good Day Sunshine

by Do_I_Really_Need_A_Name



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Baz has a disability but i don't want to make a big deal out of it, Baz is being a self sacrificing asshole, Flashbacks, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hero Simon, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Injury, M/M, Minor Violence, Not Beta Read, Oneshot, Self-Doubt, Suicidal Thoughts, Superpowers, We Die Like Men, but Penny isn't actually there, but not really, but only a little!, haha who am i kidding i just don't kow anyone who could beta read, like a lot, not asking my friends they think im normal, not graphic though, shit just happens, villain baz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28679220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Do_I_Really_Need_A_Name/pseuds/Do_I_Really_Need_A_Name
Summary: Baz is waiting for Simon Snow to come and put an end to him, even though in the grand scheme it isn't technically necessary, it's not like he still deserves the golden boy after- well. and it's not like Simon would-(Spoiler: Simon definitely would!)
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	Good Day Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> warning before you read: I have the habit to try and be poetic when I write but i'm not and it results in some weird sentences, add to that English isn't my first language... But feel free to point out any mistakes!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Oh the title is a song by the Beatles i couldn't think of anything good)

Baz

I’m standing with my back to the door, fiddling with some crystal glasses. I’m hoping that from behind it looks like I was just about to pour myself a drink. In reality I’m way too nervous to do anything other than stare at the city below me.

Through the large windows of the loft I can watch over all of Watford City. It’s a lovely view. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being up so high though. I’ve only been living in this flat for the past couple of days. It’s mine, but I’ve never lived here. It’s a bit too on the nose, being Watford’s greatest villain. I don’t want everyone thinking they’re a bloody hero to just be able to drop by whenever they please. I need my rest.

Which is what I have not been getting for the past four days.

Ever since Fiona decided it was time for her plan to be executed and I’d- well anyway, that plan is why I’ve been standing here, by the window and the glasses, wearing my best suit. Waiting for Simon bloody Snow to come through that door behind me.

And I think today might just be my lucky day. I can hear the sound of clattering footsteps in the stairwell and I have to suppress a smile. Stealth had never been Snow’s strong suit.

I didn’t put any guards on the way up to the loft because I don’t want him to be needlessly hurt before we- anyway I did have the elevator shut down. In the grand scheme of everything, having to take the stairs is nothing but a minor inconvenience for Snow. You could call it nostalgia; minor inconveniences used to be what we dealt in, back when we shared a room.

The noisy stumbling is close now, so I take a deep breath and steel myself.

The door is blasted open. I wonder if it came off it’s hinges but I can’t turn around to look yet, it would make those days of waiting by the glasses pointless. I do hold my breath though, and from behind me, a second pair of lungs is doing the exactly the opposite, sucking in air loudly. I’d recognise that breathing anywhere. It used to always be somewhere in my vicinity 24/7 over a span of ten years.

After a while it becomes clear the Snow isn’t going to say anything. That’s okay, he was never that good at talking. That was my job.

“Hello Snow.” I turn around slowly with a glass in my hand and try for a crooked grin but it turns out as more of a melancholic smile. “How lovely of you to come pay me a visit.”

-

I take a moment for myself to just look at him. He looks good, all sweaty and golden. He has always looked good but in the last three years I wasn’t by his side, he grew into himself even more. There was no trace to be found of that gaunt teenager that came to school after every summer, with skin that looked a size too big for his body. I guess that’s what daily physical training and a consistent diet can do for a man. (Note how I did not say healthy? A lot may have changed in the past 3 years that I don’t know about but if Bunce managed to get Snow on a healthy diet, hell had frozen over)

He’s wearing his hero suit, black with golden detailing. It used to be entirely in gold but Bunce thought it was tacky so she had it redesigned. (I liked it though, it made him this monochrome golden figure, like the statue of some Greek god) the suit leaves nothing to the imagination. From the way it stretches over his broad chest to the way it fits perfectly over his muscled thighs to- yeah. He looks good. It’s good to see him.

I swallow and I hope he doesn’t notice.

The expression on his face though, it’s one I haven’t had aimed in my direction since we were both seventeen. He’s not wearing his helmet, the one I used to tease makes him look like a power ranger. (He said it was supposed to be a knight’s helmet, to go with his sword, but it really is just a glorified biker helmet.)

He looks enraged, face all scrunched up and those lovely blue eyes blazing with righteous fury. Well, I guess I have been on the receiving end of it often in the past two years but then he didn’t know it was me so that doesn’t count in my book.

But then his expression it- it crumbles? Like the anger was just a facade and underneath- he just looks confused now, and still flushed from the walk up.

“Baz-“ he croaks, breathlessly. “I- I though you were dead.”

The first words he says to me in three years that aren’t incoherent, angry yelling and they damn well break my heart. Being this close to him again makes me feel so alive that I might as well have been dead all that time.

It hurts but I sneer back at him. “Well clearly I’m not.” I spread my arms in a grand gesture as if to say ‘As you can see’. It feels properly villainous.

The way he’s looking at me now is too much to bear, so many emotions flashing across his features, from relief to more confusion to just plain adoration to anger. I have to turn around to the glasses so I don’t have to look at it. He always did wear his emotions on his face like it was an open book.

“So,” I say casually as I place the glass back where it was. Next to it is a mask, completely white and featureless, like a perfect face. All it has is holes to look through. Fiona based it off the vampires from Anne Rice’s “interview with the Vampire”. I let my hand hover above it for a second. Talking to Si- I mean Snow was so much easier with the mask on.

“Have you finally come to off me then?” I ask it tonelessly, like I’m bored, while in reality my heart is beating nervously, frantically. Has he?

When he doesn’t say anything, I turn back to him and raise one eyebrow. He’s holding his sword. He was holding it earlier too but in my brain it’s just so much a part of him that it doesn’t feel worth noticing anymore. Simon Snow is always holding a sword.

It’s pointing at me and I think I can see it tremble a bit. His hands, too.  
“Wh- what?” He stammers. Another thing I used to tease him with, his inability to form complete sentences without tripping over the words. It’s endearing though.

I roll my eyes. “Yes Snow, you finally got me, the big villain. Have you forgotten the next step in this four step plan? Did Bunce not make you memorise it? Step 1: you find the villain, step 2, you fight the villain. Step 3, you kill the villain and step 4, you go home and celebrate.”

He doesn’t rise to the taunt. In fact his blue eyes are wide and watery and I think if he starts crying my knees will give out. I’ll give this all up just to walk the five step distance between us and wrap my arms around him like I haven’t been able to do in way too long.

The sword lowers a bit but I’m not sure if it’s intentional or because his arms are tired. “Baz-“ he tries again. I wait for him to continue because I want to hear his voice- and maybe also what he’s trying to say. “What- what happened to you I- I saw you die I-“ The stuttering he’s doing now does not sound like how he used to bluster back in school. Back then it was because words didn’t come naturally to him but now it’s just like his bitting back tears. And goddamnit so am I. But I’m not going to cry.

Instead, I shrug, something I didn’t use to do before I met Snow. “I did die, for a few seconds. Fiona got me to a hospital quickly enough to get me reanimated.” They did a marvellous job there. Patched me up until I was almost back to how I was before. The only thing they couldn’t quite get right was my leg. It still hurts, all the time. But I wear a heavy brace now that allows me to walk normally and the pain I’ve gotten used to. Snow doesn’t need to know that though. The only people that know are Fiona, my doctor and my physical therapist.

“She knew?” Snow asks in this small broken voice. I ache. Outwardly though, I frown. He goes on, almost like he’s mumbling to himself. “S-she knew and she never-“ then it dawns on me. Fiona. She’d told me that in the beginning, that first year when I was busy relearning how to walk, Snow came to see her. I’d asked her not to tell me about him because it hurt.

“I told her not to.” I say to him. Then I reach into my sleeve and take out my staff. I press the button in the middle and it extends. “Well if that’s quite enough chit chat, let’s get on with it shall we?” I want to talk more and I think if I do I’ll never want to fight him again. Not that I do now but I’ll be physically incapable.

He frowns too now. “Baz I- I don’t want to fight you.” That makes two of us. I sneer at him “If it makes it easier for you, I can put the mask on.” I twirl the staff around languidly, you can never warm your wrists up enough if you’re going to be hitting people with a stick.

“ What no- “ I don’t let him finish and attack instead. He holds his sword up instinctively to block the hit. Simon snow and I have fought each other so often that fighting him now feels like dancing. We know each other’s attacks and movements and I’ve always thought it was a miracle he didn’t realize it was me he when he was fighting The Shade.

The Shade is what the public has taken to calling me as a villain. I didn’t come up with a name and so the papers had in my stead. It’s not the most original villain name out there but I don’t care enough to try and change it.

In our fight, the loft is getting completely destroyed. I can’t say that it’s a bad thing. I’ve always disliked this place. Snow deflects one of my blows and my staff hits the little cart with the glasses. It would be very satisfying in literally all other circumstances.

His sword hits the plasma tv, I fall on the glass living room table and shatter it. He shoves a chair at me to block my path and I cleave it in two. It’s a mess and it feels like home for the first time in all those years I’ve had it. But that might just be my lovely house guest.

He’s not fighting back in earnest though, just blocking and deflecting my attacks. So I start goading him. Commenting on his sloppy technique and fake laughing when one of his half hearted blows misses. I push him harder so he has to match my attacks. “Is that the best you’ve got? I can’t believe I used to think we were equals in a fight.” That gets him.

He fights harder, attacking now too. I grin.

The thing is, Snow has always been a better fighter. I was the brain and he the brawn. He never really needed my brains though, he had Penelope. And he’ll still have her after today. My goal was never to win, I know I couldn’t. While we’re fighting here, Fiona is executing her coup against the mage. All I had to do was distract Simon.

I used to think that was impossible. I could annoy him, yes, irritate him until he went off but I was always the one who was distracted by him. His lovely golden skin, complete with moles and freckles, his gorgeous mop of golden curls and those ordinary blue eyes that shone brighter than anyone else’s.

After school I thought it was over, that I would never see him again and that I could get over my crush by myself. But when have I ever gotten a break from Simon Snow? Not even a month into my new job as a hero, the agency had me team up with a hero from another agency for a joint mission.

Of course that hero was Simon. At first, it was horrible, being that close to him again after I thought it was finally over, having to pick up that old banter and pretending I wasn’t head over heels for him still. But then we got locked up in a room together for three days and-

I got to experience the absolute bliss of dating Simon Snow for one and a half year. We were just about to move in together when- I think having to be apart from him again after getting to experience what it feels like to bask in the heat of his brilliance killed me more than that building falling on top of me. And then being stabbed. Repeatedly.

And then, seeing him again after a year but as a villain with a mask, without him knowing it was me. Over and over again. I’ve died often in the past three years. I think I’m ready for one last time.

Simon gets in a hit, on my leg with the brace. It makes the sound of metal hitting metal and I can imagine Simon is confused as to why my leg would make that sound but I can’t see past the blinding white of how much it hurst. I gasp and my leg gives out, sending me tumbling to the floor. The brace is definitely broken. But that’s okay, I won’t be needing it after today.

While I wait for my vision to stop swimming, I prepare myself for Simon’s killing blow. It doesn’t come.

When I’m finally able to suck in a breath that isn’t ragged and shallow, I look up at Snow. He’s standing back a bit, like he took a step away from me when I fell. Which is considerate I guess. His arms are limp by his sides and the tip of his sword rests against the carpet. He looks confused (always) and worried.

“Your leg- Baz, what happened-“ I snarl at him, feeling a bit like a cornered animal. I used to hate his pity but I suppose now I see the appeal of him gathering me up in his arms and saying something like “It’ll be okay darling, you’re going to be fine.” He used to call me darling. Back when we were together, it made me putty in his hands every single time.

Ha. I should really stop remembering all of this while we’re supposed to be fighting. The brace is hurting more than helping now so I undo the clasps through the fabric of my pants (they’re ruined anyway) and slide it out trough the pant leg.

Snow is staring at it. “What’s that?” He asks. I roll my eyes. “Merlin Snow I know you’re not the brightest but even you should be able to see this is a brace.” He frowns. “What do you need a brace for?” With a grimace I say “Seems like coming back from the dead does have a price.”

He takes a step closer and I feel like I should take one backwards but I’m still on the floor and there is no way I’m taking any steps with how my leg is right now. “Is it broken? Your leg I mean.” Morgana’s pointy shoes, I can’t believe he wants to have this talk now. I grit my teeth. “It probably is now. You hit it with your sword.”

“You couldn’t have known I was going to hit your leg, why were you wearing a brace?” I guess we really are having this conversation now. “My leg was shattered when the building fell on my, an event I’m sure even you must remember,” he cringes, looking hurt. I do my best to ignore it as I go on. “They were able to set it right but for some reason it always kept hurting. The brace helps me walk.”

He looks like he has so many more questions but I don’t wait for him to ask them, instead I push the button on my staff again so it grows a bit shorter again, then I use it to push myself upright again. I can’t put any weight on my bad leg so I use the staff as a cane.

I know I could have just stayed down but I don’t want to be looking up at Snow when he kills me. I’ve always been just a bit taller than him and it’s brought me endless joy before. I’m hoping to experience a bit of that happiness right now but it stays out, probably because Simon is looking at me like that again. Like he wants to take me with him and hide me away from the rest of the world.

I must be projecting.

He takes another step closer and I can’t help but flinch and close my eyes. Again, the blow doesn’t come. I’m not used to Snow disappointing like this, especially when the expectation is for him to swing his sword at something.

Instead I feel his hand on my cheek, softly, oh so gently cradling my jaw. My eyes fly open and I see he took more than one step closer, we’re almost chest to chest. I let myself drown in his blue eyes as he stares into mine, like he’s looking for something. I want to lean into his hand but I don’t and instead I just shiver.

Then I realize what we’re doing and I scramble to get away, like his hand suddenly burned me. If I let him get close now I might never let him step away. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I hiss at him. He’s still looking at me like that and it’s unbearable. If I wasn’t practically immobile right now I would be running away. Instead I hold on to a piece of furniture for balance and swipe my staff at him.

It’s about as bad an attack as they come but it sure does shake him out of his stupor. With a lightning quick reflex he raises his sword to avoid getting his in the neck. “Baz- I- can’t we just-“ I don’t wait to listen and just attempt to land a hit again. He blocks it effortlessly and it does things to me. “Baz- can’t you just-“ I snarl. “No I just can’t, Snow.”

He’s getting frustrated again. “Baz, listen, please-“ another attack, this time he blocks it with his hand, which must hurt. He grips the staff tightly and with a quick twist, pulls it from my hands. He tosses it behind him without looking. “Can’t we talk about this?”

I laugh at him, loud and fake. “Are you asking me to talk, Snow? Oh how the tables have turned.” The last words are pretty much a growl. This must really be some alternate world where Simon and I have switched methods, growling is usually his thing. I reach behind my back and pull out the hunting knife I had sheathed there. I point it at his throat.

My leg aches. I try to ignore it but it’s getting harder the more tired I get. I want this to be over already.

He blocks me again as I stab my knife forward. It’s almost effortless again but his face is red (I remember when it was red fo different reasons) and his eyes are wide and frantic. The next attack I make he knocks the knife out of my hand and points his sword at my neck. There we go. I feel the tip of it poke against the hollow of my throat and I suppress the urge to swallow as it will push my skin against the steel.

“Go ahead then.” I mutter. His hands tremble. “Stop doing that-“ he says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper. “W-why do you keep telling me to kill you?” I do swallow then and I feel the point of the sword bite into my skin. He doesn’t seem to notice though.

“Because it’s your job. I’m a villain and you’re a hero. You defeated me, now finish the job.” I think I do a fairly good job keeping the waver out of my voice.

“Is that what you want?” He asks and it looks like he’s seconds away from crying. I hate that I’m making him do this but I’m selfish. I want it to be him. There’s no other hands I want to be my the instrument of my death, only Simon’s.

He looks desperate “Just- please- t-tell me, did I do this? Is it my fault?” Oh he’s crying now, and soon I will be too- or now, now works too. I hope he mistakes it as tears of pain.

Then his words sink in and it’s like a punch to the chest. I stumble, away from the sword luckily. Did he do- what? Make me turn into a villain? Kill me?

Oh. Wait.

Wait wait wait no-

No no no no no-

Has Simon been blaming himself for my death for three years now? That won’t do, that really will not do. I have to tell him it’s not his fault, that he has nothing to do with any of this, that him being there was the only reason I didn’t go dark side immediately after school. I have to tell him gently-

“Are you an idiot?” Damn I’m out of practice. Gentle has not been a word in my dictionary ever since Simon wasn’t a part of my daily life anymore. But he’s here now, and I can try harder to be delicate with him because he deserves it.

I try again. “Why would you think that? There is no way you have anything to do with any of this-“ he’s sobbing and I can barely see him through my own tears. We really are a messed up pair of people aren’t we?

“Simon-“ oh that was the wrong thing to say. He chokes on a sob and his sword drops to the ground with a loud clatter. It sounds like he’s staring to hyperventilate when he presses his hands, violently shaking, against his mouth and he sags to the floor.

This was a mistake.

How could I have asked him to do this? The most lovely person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, he doesn’t deserve this. Not the blood on his hands. I guess I didn’t think he- cared enough? No that’s ridiculous, Simon Snow has always cared too much.

I try to sink down next to him but with my leg it’s a lot less graceful than that. More like I crash down where I’m standing and crawl the rest of the way on hands and knee, bad leg dragging behind me. As soon as I’m close enough to reach he curls his fists in my shirt and presses his face into my chest. All I can do is wrap my arms around him and hide my face in his curls and whisper that it’s okay and “please don’t cry, please please please be happy”

I say “How could it be you, you’re what kept me going all this time.

It was the mage.

He sent people to kill me

Fiona saved me

I had to learn how to walk again

She had a plan

Leaving you killed me every day again and again

But I needed to do this

You deserve someone better

You-“

“I love you.” He whispers. And I freeze. I can’t breath. This was a horrible plan. Maybe I’ve gone crazy in my time alone. Either because how could I have ever thought this plan was going to work or I’m hallucinating all of this.

He said he-

He only said it once before.

We’d found our dream flat. We were going to move in together, be happy. I didn’t think anything of it when we were called in because of some emergency in the city. Watford always has some kind of emergency going on and so far we had both been perfectly fine.

We both put on our suits and he’d kissed me, gently, sweetly, like I was something precious. He’d said “I love you.” And I’d beamed back at him and said “I love you more.” And he’d laughed and asked why I always had to make a competition out of everything.

An hour later he’d dragged my broken body out of the rubble of a collapsed building. I’d still been breathing then but barely. I wasn’t conscious either, Fiona told me what happened after I’d been flattened by a goddamn office block. Simon had been yelling for help, for someone to heal me but the only people close had been the villains responsible for the collapse of the building.

There were a lot of them, Fiona doesn’t know how many but too many for Simon to fight alone, especially while also shielding my unconscious body. He’d tried anyway, that is until the mage’s men had flown in to pull him away. He’d kicked and screamed and demanded they go back for me but they didn’t and he saw from the sky how several of the villains stabbed me in the stomach. For fun I guess, to make sure I was dead.

Next to my leg that’s what took the longest to heal, the holes in my internal organs. Fiona says I’m lucky they were dumb as rocks because they tried to stab me in the heart but got the wrong side and punctured my lung instead.

That’s how Fiona found me, fractures and broken bones and several stab wounds but somehow alive. My heart stopped in the hospital for like, seven seconds until they managed to start it up again.

I woke up a month later in immense pain. I couldn’t breathe on my own because of that lung and 9 broken ribs but somehow, sitting on the floor holding together Simon Snow who is being shaken apart by sobs hurts more.

He said he loves me

And I would burn oceans for him.

“I love you more.” I whisper into his hair.

-

Once we’ve both calmed down enough to properly talk, we don’t, we just sit in silence in the middle of the wrecked living room, his head in my shoulder and my head on his. He’s been running his finger up and down my leg, the bad one, so softly I can’t really feel it but I’m staring at his hand anyway.

“Does it hurt a lot?” He mutters and I feel the urge to shrug but I don’t want him to take his head of my shoulder. “It does right now,” I say honestly. “but usually it’s a day to day thing. Sometimes it hurts a lot and I stay in bed all day, sometimes it’s bearable. Depends on the weather too. Humidity makes it worse.” He hums.

“I still want to talk.” He then says and lifts his head to look at me. I stare back. When I don’t answer he goes on, still talking quietly like any loud sound will shatter this little bubble of vulnerable peace we’ve made.

“I’m not going to kill you. Not now not ever, so don’t you dare start on that again. I’d rather kill myself.” I start to protest but he places his hand over my mouth. I let him talk.

“The last few years have been awful,” he says. “the first year after I’d lost you I barely came out of my bed, I didn’t speak a word and I didn’t eat. I’m not trying to guilt trip you here but I need you to know that now I know you’re still alive, living without you isn’t an option. Well unless you don’t want to, then of course I-“

I kiss him then, because he’s rambling and because I’ve never wanted anything more. It works because immediately he shuts up and melts into me. Living without him was never an option for me too. It wasn’t living it was just existing, and as Oscar Wilde once said, “To live is the rarest thing, most people just exist, that’s all.” And Simon Snow brought me to life, time and time again.

-

We kiss for what feels like ages but ends way too soon when he leans forward and pain shoots through my leg. I gasp and it’s not in the good way. He notices and immediately pulls back. “What’s wrong?” There is so much worry in his voice that I can’t help but smile. His eyes follow from where my hands were in his hair to where they now are clutching my leg.

“Right.“ he says, like he forgot that we’d just fought and that we were both hurt. (I hit his chest several times with my staff I’m pretty sure he has broken ribs) “do you have a replacement brace?” He asks and I nod. “Sort of. But it’s not as good as the other one and I’m pretty sure it’s broken again so I don’t think it’ll help much.” He suddenly looks anxious again. “Baz what if I damaged your leg further, is it going to hurt more-?” I roll my eyes again but it’s with a smile this time. “I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you, I don’t think it can get any more fucked up than it already is. It’ll just heal like a normal broken leg and go back to being it’s painful, annoying self.” He doesn’t really look reassured but he nods anyway.

Then his phone rings. How it’s in his pocket unbroken after our fight, I’ll never understand. He must have an incredible phone case. He fishes it out and says “it’s Penny.” Ah. Well. I put my hand over the phone and push it down gently. (See, I’ve still got it! Simon brings out both the best and the worst in me)

“You were right, we do need to talk. I’ve got a feeling I know what she’s calling for and I’d like you to hear it from me... then you can decide after if you still want...” I trail off and he frowns. “Want what?” He asks “you? Always.” That’s so incredibly sweet I want to kiss him again. And I would, if I wasn’t so scared he would change his mind after I told him. So I smile but it’s a weak thing.

He looks at me expectantly so I scrape my throat and start talking.

“It’s- The mage, he-“ again, what weird alternate universe is this? I’m usually the one who’s good with words... “I know you don’t want to believe it but the mage he-“ when I mention the mage, Simon suddenly looks really angry but I’m not sure at what or at whom so I give him a second. Eventually he grits out “Fuck the mage.” That’s got me stunned for a little. The mage was one of the few subjects that even after we started dating, we still fought over sometimes.

To Simon, the mage is a bit like a father, he got Simon out of the foster system and into Watford City’s Hero Academy. And even though the mage was never really kind to him and sent him back to foster care literally every summer, Simon had always seen the mage as someone who can do no wrong. Blind to all the horrible crimes the man committed right under his nose because the mage would say “it’s for the greater good, Simon.”

So to hear Simon say ”Fuck the mage”? Yeah I’m awestruck. I’m hoping if I stare at him long enough with wide eyes and open mouth he’ll explain his change of heart. He’s still looking mad but not at me, at his own hands, currently balled into tight fists. I want to smooth the crease between his eyebrows but I take his hands instead.

This must be hard for him. Something must have happened that made him realise the man he’d seen as some kind of father was actually a bad person in the time between now and when we last spoke. What did that terrible man do to Simon?  
“Love...” I mumble and press our foreheads together. He relaxes instantly.

“I- it’s-“ he huffs. “It was last week, after that fight where you lost your mask, I- I was just so happy, you were still alive and that’s all I could think of, just, alive alive alive. I didn’t think of what it meant that you were The Shade all along or why you hadn’t come to see me yet. I just- and then I told the mage, I was so excited, I thought I was getting you back. But the first thing he said was ‘I knew something like this was going to happen, it’s a plot from the old families!” And “we must disable this threat immediately!” And I told him “but it’s Baz” and he said that he’d always known you were a spy for your family and that you’d never really-“

He’s getting chocked up again and I can guess what the mage said he can’t repeat here. I’m going to kill the mage, tear him limb from limb until he’s nothing more than a pile of pieces. I’m going to feed him to my aunt Fiona.

I keep my fury to myself though, Simon doesn’t need anger right now. So I hug him instead, press little kisses to his temples and his eyelids and his nose. “I’m not that good of an actor Simon. Literally everyone knew I was in love with you, some people even before I knew it myself. Well, everyone but you. But you’re thick, so that’s okay.” He laughs wetly and the sound reverberates in my chest.

Then I remember the phone call and what I should actually be telling him. “Fiona is executing a coup right now.” Damn I could’ve probably said that a different way. He snaps his head up to look at me and I feel like I can’t look him in the eyes. “That’s why I lost my mask, it’s all been leading up to this. She knew you would come for me if you knew I was alive so I had to distract you. She’s probably taken city hall by now.” I hadn’t heard anything of her yet but that’s probably because my phone was in the kitchen on the floor where I not so accidentally stepped on it during our fight. Wretched thing.

“When you told me to kill you, was that part of the distraction?” He whispers and I cringe. “No, no it’s- I didn’t exactly have the best time either, these past three years, without you. The first year I spent mostly in bed too, because I couldn’t walk. I had a lot of time to think. Too much I suppose. I convinced myself you were too good for me and that even if Fiona’s plan succeeded, and you didn’t hate my guts for getting the mage out of power, I still shouldn’t return so you wouldn’t feel obliged to, I don’t know, get back together with me I guess?”

It sounds horrible and self depreciating when I say it out loud so I cringe as I talk, keeping my eyes trained on his knees. I really don’t want him to pity me, I have self pity enough as it is. But instead he just says “And you say I’m an idiot...” before lifting my chin and kissing me again. It’s good. It’s always good and yet every time it’s like I forgot just how good. My memory can never do it justice.

Simon’s phone rings again. It’s Bunce again. He looks at me and I nod lightly. He picks up the call and puts it on speaker.

She doesn’t even say hi.

“Simon I sure hope you got Basil there with you because we’ve got some discussing to do!”

Simon snorts. “Hi Penny.” He says. She sighs. “Hi Simon.” Simon and I grin at each other and it feels just like it did three years ago. “Hello Bunce.” I say.

“Basil!” Her voice comes through the receiver and she sounds like she’s relieved and trying not to show it. “You’ve got some explaining to do you bastard!” “All in good time Bunce.” I drawl and she huffs.

“What happened over there?” Simon asks. That was apparently all Bunce needed to start rambling. “Well for one the mage is in jail, your boyfriend’s aunt just waltzed in here with a group of men that looked like the backstreet boys and arrested him! I’m still not sure on what authority she managed to do that but-“ I stop listening, still sort of hung up on the fact that she called me Simon’s boyfriend. And that he didn’t correct her. Does that mean we are boyfriends again? We’re we ever not? We never did break up after al... but then again I died and the whole, until death do us part....

But he did kiss me. Twice. And he said living without me wasn’t an option so.  
We’ll figure it out. For now, I’m just happy he’s here.

“Hiya Baz! Nice to mee you, I’m Shepard!” A voice I don’t know comes from the phone. I raise my eyebrows at Simon who says “Penny’s new boyfriend. I’ll catch you up later.” I nod. “Hello Shepard, nice to meet you too.” I say. It feels weird, holding civilized conversations again, but I’ll get used to it.

“Penny could you come pick us up? Baz hurt his leg, he can’t walk.” Simon asks. Bunce agrees and hangs up, parting with “I’ll see you losers in a bit.” Simon grins at me and I’m starting to smile back when-

“oh no-“ I whisper in horror. “I disabled the elevator-“

**Author's Note:**

> Well. that's that. I wrote this instead of studying for my exams (about a week and a half ago) and now I have the exam tomorrow and I did not study enough... Wishing you a better day than the one i'm about to have.
> 
> XXX


End file.
